Traditional methods for manufacturing gun holsters and other types of duty gear containers for use by law enforcement personnel are by shaping and sewing multiple leather components. Although in general, leather is adaptable to shaping operations to fit the item retained within the holster or other duty gear container, the shape disappears when the container is subjected to moisture. In addition, there are undesirable limits to which leather can be shaped to conform to the implement being retained within the container.
To address these problems, a thermal forming process was developed to produce a moisture-insensitive container which could be molded to the precise contours of the object to be retained within the container. This process comprises preparing a laminate of at least one layer of liner material and a layer of heat moldable thermoplastic material. The container is produced by heating the laminate to the molding temperature of the thermoplastic material, inserting a forming core inside the laminate and applying pressure from the outside of the laminate wall. The temperature is then reduced to a level below the molding temperature of the laminate.
Although thermal forming plastic sheets of various materials to produce holsters and other duty gear containers has been a significant manufacturing advancement which produces exceptionally high quality holsters and other containers, it is not without its disadvantages. Since the laminate is a sheet which is thermal formed into the desired shape, the adjacent ends of the shaped sheet require a closure mechanism to retain the edges. Typically, the edges are either stitched, riveted, stapled or cemented. A further drawback to this process is that the laminate requires a gluing operation to ensure that the leather or other liner materials stays securely adhered to the thermoplastic layer. A further disadvantage is that once the container is formed, either the outer surface of the thermoplastic layer requires an additional machining process to create an acceptable aesthetic appearance, or more commonly, a second or outer layer of leather needs to be glued to the laminate prior to molding to achieve the acceptable aesthetic appearance. Yet another drawback is that uniform pressure must to be applied to produce the precise contours of the item retained within the container.
All of these drawbacks either require an additional operation during the manufacturing process or they increase the difficulty of a specific step in the process. Consequently, a need exists for an improved method for manufacturing holsters or other duty gear containers which addresses the disadvantages associated with prior thermal forming of laminated containers.